The first trophy of the season has gone to Arsenal in the 'traditional season opener' or a 'glorified friendly'. They deservedly beat City who may as well not have turned up in the first half. How worrying City's performance was depends partly on your view of the importance of the Community Shield. I'm of the opinion it's a bit of both the above descriptions. It's a traditional friendly to open the season, a bit more competitive than normal due to the spotlight on it, but ultimately not that meaningful.
In the stadium it was rapidly clear that Arsenal were taking the game more seriously than City. On the pitch City were still in full pre-season mode. Yaya Toure in particular was just wandering around as if it was a game in the park he'd stumbled on and wasn't sure how long he wanted to stay and play for. Other players weren't at full pace either, I can't remember Jesus Navas running at a defender once for example.
Off the pitch, the fans weren't that bothered either. Neither end of the stadium was full, although the gaps at the Arsenal end were much smaller, a few gaps of maybe 10 to 20 seats with a few other seats empty scattered around their end. Club Wembley was, as usual, maybe half-full. In the City end though, there were thousands of empty seats. The two pictures below show the difference between the two ends clearly.
There are reasons for some of this, the distance of City fans from Wembley, cost, the travel issues due to engineering work closing the west coast mainline so that no trains were running between Manchester and London. But the biggest reason is that City fans, like the players, just weren't as bothered with it as Arsenal fans.
If that is the only reason for the defeat, then there is little to be concerned about. There is also the fact that Arsenal were much closer to full strength than City, which could have played a role. But there is another, much more worrying possibility - City are under-prepared for the season ahead.
One of the negative side-effects of having a large squad full of internationals is that more of our players will be involved late in major tournaments. City had three players on the pitch in the World Cup Final last month. This means they end up returning very late in pre-season. This year it was a week ago. The consequence of this is that City has had a half-strength squad for most of pre-season. This is bound to have an impact on preparations. There is obviously a question mark over the match fitness for the late returning players (which is why none of them played at Wembley) but there will be impacts on the team. New signings will take longer to settle in, understanding within the team will take longer to achieve, and pre-season games will have featured players that will not play once the season starts (e.g. Jack Rodwell).
This is unavoidable as the players do need the break, but has it left City under-prepared for the season ahead? We have a fairly tough opening set of fixtures so do need to hit the ground running. If we aren't ready we could find ourselves falling behind early on. There is one mitigating factor this season - the games are fairly spread out at the start of the season. Partly that is because the season is two weeks longer this year, but it's mainly because there are a lot of international games being played (England play 4 before the middle of October), which should give us time to catch up a little if we are under-prepared.
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